Page 52 of Composed
“Is she?”
“Different?” I cock my head, watching as Axel carts her around the room with his arm wrapped around her shoulder, showing off every little thing. “Haven't figured that out yet.”
He fingers his strings, smoking curling around him, joint trapped between his teeth. “You gonna be okay?”
If he’d asked me this question earlier, my answer would have been different. Because seeing Hendrix back home is one thing.
Seeing her here … in the world we’ve created in her absence?
That’s a whole fucking other.
I had a plan with all of this. I was gonna ask her to work with me, she was gonna say yes, and that was that. Professional. Business. Nothing more, nothing less. Because I have to respect the choice she made all those years ago.
But then I saw her, all sparkling eyes and ink, and the plan shifted.
And when she called, and I heard her husky voice, one that is both new and old…
It fucking disintegrated.
Because how could I not want to keep talking to her?
I turn my head, watching Hendrix perch on the corner of the couch, her expression flat, her eyes dull as they bounce over the room.
“Ask me when she’s gone,” I tell Saint, tipping my head back against the glass. “Then maybe I can find it in myself to lie.”
Chapter seventeen
Hendrix • Now
Homecoming – A Day To Remember
IwatchColefromthe corner of my eye, locked in the sound booth, arms folded across his chest, head tipped back.
I tug my tongue stud between my teeth. I used to be able to know everything he was thinking with just a single look at his face. Now, his expression is blank, his emotions walled off from me.
I flick my gaze to Saint.
A blunt sits between clenched teeth and his mouth moves as he says something to Cole, who only shrugs him off.
Even just watching them feels like an intrusion in a place I no longer belong.
I rip my gaze away as Axel rolls a swivel chair across the floor. Stopping inches from Riley, he props his legs on the small rounded black table, and brushes his lip with his thumb, his eyes dipping. “You. I don’t know.”
Riley's nose wrinkles, her lips twist, and she shudders. “I’m Riley.”
Axel’s face slackens as she looks back down to her hands.
He turns to me, his brow hiked in surprise.
I hide my grin behind my hand.
I’m pretty sure men who look like him—golden tanned skin, buzzed blond hair, tattoos stretching around both his arms, chocolate brown eyes—aren’t used to being cringed at in a woman’s company.
“Did she just…” he trails off, his mouth opening and closing.
A smile curves my lips, easing the tension in my jaw. “Yep.”
“Huh.” He looks at me, then at Riley, then at me again. “Interesting.” He grins mischievously, eyes glinting under the LEDs. “I like her.”
